Today Piwik 1.9.2 was released, and the first point of the release notes contains a bold move on the part of the Piwik development team: To NOT honor DoNotTrack by default for IE10. Why? Because IE10 has DoNotTrack enabled by default.

This is arguably a step in the wrong direction for the Piwik team, and DoNotTrack in general, as Piwik is forgoing honoring the setting just for the sake of collecting analytics data. It’s actually a step backwards from Piwik’s own 1.9.1 release, in which honoring DoNotTrack was enabled by default, and the user was recommended against changing it.

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Instead, what Piwik should have done is simple: Allow the user to choose at install or configuration time whether or not to honor the setting, with a clear statement of why each way, such as the following example text:

Respect DoNotTrack Preference?

It is encouraged to respect user privacy choices by respecting the DoNotTrack browser privacy setting. Please be aware, though, that IE10 has it enabled by default and some traffic may not be recorded.

How do you want to handle this?

[X] Respect DoNotTrack in all situations (recommended)[ ] Respect DoNotTrack for all browsers except IE10 (for more accurate stats)[ ] Do not respect DoNotTrack at all (not recommended)